"Metal and Dust"

Metal and Dust Recordings

Artists:

London Grammar's debut single, "Hey Now", was an exquisitely icy slow build buffeted with spare, soulful keys. What little percussion there was sounded particular to the south of their eponymous city, an impression strengthened by Hannah Reid's particularly Jessie Ware-like vocal. "Metal and Dust", the second song to be taken from a forthcoming EP, takes its rhythmic cues from a city further west; the dry, shuffling rattle of the chorus is a dead ringer for Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy", though the mood here is more emotionally forlorn. The materials of the song's title concern the crumble of a life built on trust, a relationship where a couple argue, but never fight, and the house around them. The elemental metaphor is appropriate; London Grammar account for every slippery string, vocal echo, ultrasound heartbeat, and wordless, holy vocal peal on "Metal and Rust", the second in a so-far immaculate collection.